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Movie review: Post Grad
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Post Grad is a plodding puff piece euphemistically depicting the endeavors of a newly-minted college grad to “do something amazing†with her life—specifically as a shoe-in hire at the L.A. publishing firm of Happerman & Browning.
Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) has dreamed of the day she can flip the tassel from one side of her mortar board to the other and set her alarm for the first day of the rest of her life according to “The Plan†as outlined with boundless enthusiasm on her Blog.
Trouble is, it appears her limited Facebook world seems to have not heard that there’s a recession out there, with hundreds of applicants for every job as dreamy as being the editor of the next Great American Novel. Ryden’s youth, beauty, zest, non-existent history of high wages and “love of books†do not get her a call-back at H&B, much to her depressed disbelief.
Before they’ve had a chance to enjoy the half-empty nest syndrome, Mr. (Michael Keaton) and Mrs. (Jane Lynch) Malby are helping Ryden carry her stuff back to her bedroom. There’s ia mirror in front of her bedroom which she practices over the next few months various versions of her upbeat, self-promoting sales pitch for a variety of interviews for just about anything with a paycheck.
Always available to offer moral support and an Eskimo Pie to help Ryden “maintain balance in the Universe†is Adam (Zach Gilford), her best friend since before his hormones turned like into love. He’s torn between a career practicing law and a career performing music. One means pleasing Dad (J.D. Simmons), the other means expressing his feelings for Ryden.
While he’s deliberating and she’s circling want ads in the paper, Ryden’s little brother Hunter (Bobby Coleman) begs Dad to help him enter the 9th annual Soapbox Derby. Grandma (Carol Burnett) picks out her “eternal slumber” coffin with the same rust and corrosion protection as the Alaska pipeline; Mom thinks of contacting an old friend in the publishing business for Ryden and finds out she’s dead; and Dad runs over the neighbor’s cat.
It’s not a great way to start a relationship, but Ryden catches the eye of David (Rodrigo Santoro), a Brazilian expatriot, at the cat’s backyard burial (complete with a dreary recording of “Memories†from the musical Cats). Ryden unburdens herself with the mannerly Latino, who admires her ears so much he offers her a job as his Personal Assistant on the set of a commercial he’s directing for a machine that makes guacamole.
Neither the job nor the flirtation yield anything beyond some words of wisdom from David, but the damage is done when Adam decides he’s “not waiting around for Ryden anymore.†Faced with that fork in the road that Yogi Berra made famous, is Ryden smart enough to take it?
Geared precisely to the female fans of “Gilmore Girls†star Bledel, writer Kelly Fremon’s flat-footed script lays out scenarios bearing little relation to reality in its determination to avoid provoking any anxiety in their blissfully naïve souls.
Director Vicky Jenson gives one embarrassing moment of carnality to Bledel—a young woman, as showcased here, more the type who wears a “promise†ring (as in the promise to remain a virgin until marriage) than animatedly disrobes a man ten years her senior. But, there is no way to think ill of an actress with such sweetly hypnotic baby blues. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release, rated PG-13 for sexual situation and brief strong language.
